What can we expect from Alicia Bárcena?
Mexico’s newly elected first female President, Dr Claudia Sheinbaum, will take office in October 2024. However, she has recently appointed six cabinet members including the environment minister. On 20 June 2024, she announced the appointment of Alicia Bárcena, currently the Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Andres Manuel López Obrador, as the future Minister of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) from October 1st. What can we expect from the new Minister?
For a start, Alicia Bárcena is not new to the environmental sector. In fact, she was Undersecretary back in the 1980s in the then Ministry of Urban Development and Ecology, Mexico´s first environmental institution in the public administration (SEMARNAT was created in 1994).
Bárcena, a biologist from Mexico´s National University (UNAM), has a Master’s Degree from Harvard University and holds three honoris Causa PhDs from Oslo University (2014), Habana University (2016), and UNAM (2019). From 2008 to 2022 she was the Executive Secretary for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL in Spanish) and has vast international experiences with environmental matters– not only from the UN universe, but from civil society, and more recently as a diplomat and as Secretary of Foreign Affairs In Mexico.
Once Mexico knew on the night of Sunday June 2nd that Claudia Sheinbaum had won the elections with over 30 % more votes than the second-place candidate, Xochitl Galvez, the next question was who would she appoint as members of her cabinet.
For us working on the environmental agenda in Mexico, we were very interested in what decision would be taken in terms of the person that would be leading SEMARNAT in the next government. Many names were discussed before any formal appointment by the elected President that included former government officers of Mexico City, leaders of the Green Party that was an ally to Sheinbaum’s Morena party in the elections, and even well-known academics. But on June 20th, Sheinbaum announced six of her secretaries including Alicia Bárcena as the person that will be responsible for the environmental policy in a country that has many challenges to solve on these issues.
Historically an active international player in terms of environmental issues (Mexico was the first developing country to present its NDC under the Paris Agreement for example) during the last administration, the country changed its priorities and reduced its protagonism and even leadership in international forums including climate change conferences of parties. In fact, from 2021 to 2023 the country reduced its share of renewable energy from 27% to 22 %[1]. In addition, huge infrastructure projects like the Dos Bocas refinery and the Tren Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula received a considerable amount of criticism form civil society due to its environmental impact.
The announcement of Alicia Bárcena as the new secretary of SEMARNAT has been well received by the environmental community in Mexico and abroad. She will transition from being the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, a position she will hold until September 30th and from October 1st with the new government she will change offices from Mexico City center area to Polanco, where SEMARNAT is located. As any secretary of environment around the world, but perhaps more so in Mexico, she will face many challenges that affect the country, mainly water scarcity in the northern half of the country, biodiversity conservation, deforestation, protection of marine and coastal ecosystems, and combating climate change in a country that is both an important actor in terms of GHG emissions, but also highly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, including those related with climate justice.
We can expect however that Bárcena´s background and vast professional experience will be very important to put Mexico back again on a more visible international participation level, including the multilateral conventions such as the UNFCCC and the UNCBD, and regionally with the Escazú Agreement. Likewise, it is possible to affirm that Bárcena will be open to international cooperation. With a government led by Claudia Sheinbaum – a former IPCC member – and now with the appointment of Alicia Bárcena as environmental minister, it is hoped that Mexico will put environmental and renewable energy matters higher up the political agenda.
Andrés Avila Akerberg
Executive Director of POLEA
POLEA – Mexican civil society organization specializes in the development of environmental and climate change policies and legislation through participative processes. @PoleaAC
[1] Dana Nuccitelli, “¿Qué está haciendo México respecto al cambio climático?”, Yale Climate Conections, Yale School of Environment, 2024, p. 3.
